"I take personal responsibility as an individual
for leaving a legacy for future generations that is better than
the one that was left for me."

- Julia Butterfly, 8 November 1998.

Back in the July issue of The Maine Woods I wrote of Julia
Butterfly and the struggle to save the Headwaters Forest in northern
California, the largest remaining unprotected old-growth Redwood
forest, from Charles Hurwitz and the destructive forest practices
of the Pacific Lumber company. In the intervening four months,
much has transpired in this battle to save the old-growth Coast
Redwoods.

First of all, in a very close vote on September 1st, ignoring
the pleas of many grassroots environmental groups and hundreds
of citizens, the California legislature approved Assembly Bill
1986, a plan to fund the controversial Headwaters Forest Agreement.
Under this agreement, state and federal taxpayers would pay $495
million to purchase about 9,400 acres of land owned by Pacific
Lumber, including 4500 acres of old-growth Redwoods and a surrounding
buffer of 4000 acres of mostly clear-cut land.

"Maxxam bought Pacific Lumber in 1986 for about $850
million, and has extracted over $1.5 billion from the forest
since then. Now they've sold less than 10,000 acres that were
already protected under the Endangered Species Act for $495 million
bucks. These guys have got to be some of the best shysters in
America" said Paul Mason of the Environmental Protection
Information Center (EPIC).

The good news is that this agreement would secure permanent
protection for the Headwaters and Elk Head Springs Groves, and
possibly Owl and Grizzly Creek Groves of old-growth Redwoods.
The bad news is that the agreement is attached to a biologically
inadequate and potentially devastating Habitat Conservation Plan
(HCP). The final authorization of the agreement hinges on the
approval of the HCP by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and
the California Dept. of Forestry. This dramatically inadequate
HCP would give the company an "Incidental Take Permit"
allowing it to kill endangered species and destroy their habitat
for the next 50 years in exchange for a few "mitigation"
measures.

The HCP would allow clear-cutting of roughly 8,000 acres of
ancient Redwoods that are potentially habitat for the endangered
Marbled Murrelet, killing 17-25 % of the local population in
the process. It would also allow the destruction of 3-4,000 acres
of ancient Douglas fir on the steep, slopes of the Mattole Valley,
and the conversion of the majority of Pacific Lumber's 200,000
acres to "even-aged" forests (i.e., clearcuts). Inadequate
buffer zones for numerous streams essential to their survival
would spell further trouble for the already threatened Coho Salmon.
The plan would also allow radically increased herbicide use in
conjunction with widespread clear-cutting, and also completely
ignores many important issues such as operations on steep, unstable
slopes, where much of the habitat damage originates.

The most dramatic event of the last four months occurred on
September 17th. Following threats delivered in an angry confrontation
with Earth First! activists, Pacific Lumber tree-faller A.E.
Ammons felled a 200 year old Coast Redwood in the direction of
the protesters, killing activist David "Gypsy" Chain.
There was ample evidence the logger was enraged and deliberately
felled the fatal tree toward the group of protesters, but within
hours of Chain's death the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department
issued a preliminary finding that the death was accidental.

Astoundingly, an official investigation team did not inspect
the death scene until ten day's later. The crime scene where
Chain was killed was never cordoned off as a crime scene until
the police were trying to extract the Earth First! activists
that locked-down in the area. If it had been up to the law enforcement
agencies, Pacific Lumber would have been in there the very next
day, logging in the same area where Chain was killed, destroying
all the evidence. Activists locked down to keep that from happening,
but in the end it made little difference.

Witnesses swore Ammons told them in encounters the day before
Chain's death that he would not hesitate to kill them if they
were in a tree he was felling or in his way. The Humboldt County
Sheriff's Dept. and the Humboldt County District Attorney's office,
however, continued their history of disregard for the rights
of environ-mentalists. Ignoring the sworn testimony of seven
eyewitnesses as well as videotaped threats from Ammons, they
never seriously considered Ammons as a suspect, and made a final
determination that Chain's death was accidental. Incredibly,
David Chain's mother, Cindy Allsbrooks, was also told by Humboldt
County Sheriff's Investigator Juan Freeman that they will recommend
to the District Attorney's office that the seven activists who
were with Chain be charged with manslaughter. (an audio recording
of Ammons' threats to the activists can be heard at this website
- http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9809b/gypsytape.html)

This situation is eerily reminiscent of the FBI's attempting
to charge Redwood activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney with
the car bombing that nearly took their lives in Oakland back
in 1990. Allsbrooks and her lawyer, along with many groups and
individuals, called for another independent investigation of
Chain's death by an impartial government agency, but state and
federal agencies have declined.

On October 7th, dressed in full riot gear, 42 police officers
from the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department, the Fortuna Police
Department, the California Highway Patrol and the California
Dept. of Forestry raided the Earth First! blockade that had kept
loggers from the site where David Chain was killed a few weeks
earlier. The police used pepper spray on two women chained to
logging equipment near the death site. The officers held back
the heads of the women and poured liquid pepper spray over their
faces from a dixie cup. Still suffering inflammation and discomfort
from the pepper spray, the requests of the women for medical
treatment in jail were denied.

In a chilling decision in San Francisco on October 26th, U.S.
District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the controversial dabbing
of pepper spray directly into the eyes of logging protesters'
constituted a reasonable use of force by the Humboldt County
Sheriffs Department and the Eureka Police Department. The law
enforcement agencies had been sued after their officers had used
the pepper spray on nine peaceful protesters on three separate
occasions during the fall of 1997. The officers had not simply
sprayed the protesters, but actually pulled back their eyelids
and dabbed the caustic spray directly into the eyes of the protesters
with Q-tips. These protesters included two teenage girls.

"We feel like the use of violence against nonviolent
protesters is accelerating," Jeff Davis, a volunteer at
Earth First's Arcata office, said about the ruling. "They're
using more violent means, and we're just wondering what's going
to happen next."

On November 3rd Gray Davis, a Democrat, was elected as the
new governor of California. During his campaign he stressed his
commitment to environmental protection and promised to work to
end the logging of old-growth forests in California. However,
within a week of the election he announced that Barry Munitz
would head his administration's transition team. Munitz is a
former executive of the Maxxam Corporation and helped Charles
Hurwitz with his hostile takeover of Pacific Lumber. So much
for campaign promises.

Finally, on November 10th, in an action that will certainly
affect the approval process of the highly contested HCP and final
authorization of the Headwaters Forest Agreement, the California
Dept. of Forestry issued a suspension of Pacific Lumber Company's
Timber Operator's License. In doing so they cited repeated "violations
involving gross negligence and willful disregard for the Forest
Practice Act and Forest Practice Rules". This included illegal
destruction of Coho Salmon habitat and a Spotted Owl nesting
territory.

The company has violated the state's Forest Practice Rules
approximately 300 times since 1995. Last December the Dept. of
Forestry also suspended Pacific Lumber's operator's license for
repeated violations of forest practices laws, and only renewed
the license on a conditional basis for 1998. The conditional
license required that no new violations occur for 1998, but the
company has racked up 16 violations of Forest Practice Rules
since the beginning of the year. This recent move by the Dept.
of Forestry is more symbolic than substantive because the company
will still be able to utilize contract loggers to operate on
many of their Timber Harvest Plans, but it is still a good first
step. Most importantly, it casts even more serious doubt on Pacific
Lumber's willingness to comply with even the inadequate protections
in the controversial HCP.

Meanwhile, Julia has just passed the 11-month mark in her
courageous occupation of the 1800 year old Coast Redwood known
as Luna. When I spoke with her by phone on November 8th she was
in good spirits and preparing for a second winter in the tree.
"I'm doing great. Just battening down the hatches, chinking
up the crevices, just trying to deal with the oncoming cold and
rain and fierce winds that are starting to hit," she reported.

When we discussed the recent events, Julia's disgust with
the Headwaters Forest Agreement, and the HCP, and the behavior
of government officials in Humboldt County was obvious. "If
the HCP is approved, the next strategy will be huge lawsuits
because that is the only thing left. Pacific Lumber presented
the HCP pretending as if they were giving us this great protection
for fifty years when in actuality they were locking into a lot
of bad practices for fifty years, while simultaneously allowing
themselves loopholes to get around any of the decent protections
that are in the plan."

"If the laws were merely being enforced we would not
even be discussing the HCP right now because it is illegal, by
law, for the company to have it. A HCP is a plan that is basically
based on good faith and so, as a result, if a company has proven
that it can not be trusted in good faith, then it is not allowed
to have it." (A provision in the Code of Federal Regulations
forbids the issuance of an Incidental Take Permit to an entity
that has received a criminal citation for the same type of behavior
as that for which the entity seeks a permit. Under these circumstances,
the issuance to Pacific Lumber of an HCP/Incidental Take Permit
would violate federal law.)

"I know that some of the members of the California State
Board of Forestry want to do the right thing, but because this
horrible HCP was attached to a horrible deal, politics is shoving
it down their throats. If they did their job and enforced the
law, the HCP would be null and void and they would be heroes,
and it is that simple. So that is where we're at - do they have
the strength to merely do their jobs?"

"Our biggest fight is against the government agencies
that refuse to do their jobs. It's ridiculous. So much of our
time is spent in merely trying to get the law enforced. David
"Gypsy" Chain died doing the job of the California
Dept. of Forestry. In the area he was killed defending, two extremely
serious violations were found. One of my biggest requests is
that the laws in existence be enforced. Is that too much to ask
for? No, it's not!"

The final authorization for the Headwaters Forest Agreement
must be accomplished by 1 March 1999, and the new governor has
until then to negate the deal. If the deal falls through, perhaps
then serious talks can begin on a debt-for-nature swap. Instead
of throwing more money at billionaire Charles Hurwitz, we can
start talking about exchanging Headwaters Forest for the $1.6
billion he already owes U.S. taxpayers for the 1988 FDIC bailout
of his United Savings Association of Texas. Perhaps then Headwaters
Forest could be incorporated into Redwood National Park, protecting
its irreplaceable ancient forests for generations to come.

Giant Sequoias and Sequoia National
Forest

When it comes to big trees, California is doubly blessed.
South and east of the forests of Coast Redwoods, the tallest
trees in the world, and high on the much drier western slopes
of the Sierra Nevada, are scattered groves of the related Giant
Sequoia, the largest trees in the world. Growing not quite as
tall as the Coast Redwoods, but with a far greater girth, the
groves of Giant Sequoias are equally impressive to behold. Not
only are they the largest trees on Earth, but they are also among
the oldest living things on Earth. Many of these trees are over
3000 years old. It is humbling, to say the least, to stand in
front of one of these massive trees knowing that it began growing
in that spot a thousand years before the birth of Christ. It
is a length of time that we humans, with our comparatively short
lives, can not even begin to really comprehend.

Like the Coastal Redwood forests, and like almost all of the
remaining old-growth forests around the world, the Giant Sequoias
are under threat from logging. Many people have the impression
that the Giant Sequoias are protected in National Parks, and
many are protected in Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.
However, the majority of Giant Sequoias are found in Sequoia
National Forest, and these 38 Sequoia groves have not had the
protection afforded Giant Sequoia forests in the National Park
and Wilderness systems. In the 1980's, under the guise of "grove
enhancement", the U.S. Forest Service allowed clearcutting
within Giant Sequoia groves, leaving only large "specimen"
Sequoias standing. The clearcutting caused massive erosion on
the steep slopes where Sequoias often grow, threatening the survival
of even the remaining "specimen" trees.

In 1990, a lawsuit stopped this logging within the Sequoia
groves, and a negotiated agreement mandated the Forest Service
to map the Sequoia groves and to draft a Forestwide Sequoia Plan.
To date no plan has been written. Instead, the Forest Service
continues its mismanagement of the Sequoia National Forest, repeatedly
violating environmental laws such as the National Forest Management
Act, while doing its best to exclude the public from participating
in the process. Perhaps worst of all, the Forest Service seems
to be moving ahead with plans to again begin logging within the
Sequoia groves.

Along with the national forest's importance for the protection
of the Sequoia ecosystem, there is a large and growing demand
for recreational opportunities in the Sequoia National Forest.
A recent survey showed that more people are visiting the national
forest than visit Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. The
potential recreational value of the national forest is far greater
than its logging potential.

At the same time, not only is the Forest Service endangering
Giant Sequoia groves with its logging policies within the national
forest, but it is doing so at a cost of millions of dollars a
year to the taxpayers. Considering their long record of mismanagement
of this national treasure, perhaps it is time for transferring
the management of Sequoia National Forest to the National Park
Service, where the Sequoia groves would be protected for posterity.

What YOU Can Do!

2) Write the Forest Service regional office and tell
them that you feel that Sequoia National Forest, in general,
but especially all Giant Sequoia groves and the watersheds that
contain them, should be removed from the timber base. Write to:
Lynn Sprague, Region 5, USFS, 630 Sansome Street, San Francisco,
CA 94111

3) Write your Representatives and Senators and ask
them to sponsor and support The Sequoia Ecosystem and Recreation
Preserve Act. This bill would establish a National Forest Preserve
within the Sequoia National Forest to protect, preserve and restore
the Giant Sequoia groves and their ecosystem.